Using Public Transport

If you are used to run all your errants and make all your visits and things by car, suddenly being forced to use public transport can be a complete new experience. And not really a bad one as I happened to find out.  

On Wednesday I had to see my dentist for my regular yearly exam which you need to have been to the last couple of years to get the maximal allowance for artificial dentition from the  compulsory health insurance fund. I still go to see my old dentist in my birthplace and former residence Heidenheim although I have been living in Aalen for over 15 years now. Its only 15 miles, half an hour by car and why should I change my dentist al long as I am content with him? I´m originally an engineer and follow the old trusted rule: Never change a running system...

This time something was wrong with my good old Isuzu Trooper and she broke down at Itzelberg, a small village still about five miles from Heidenheim. Fortunately this nice little place has not only a beautiful little lake but still a little railroad station too. And even more fortunately the next train to Heidenheim came soon and did stop at this station. So I reached my dentist about three quarters of an hour late but I reached him and didt not have to wait long anyway. Forty minutes or so after I left my dentist's there was a train back to Aalen, so that I had an occassion to have a little stroll around downtown Heidenheim to see what all has changed again since my last visit.    

The most interesting in this little occurence were the things I experineced on the trains and strolling around town. Not only seeing all the changes there from nearby and out of a pedestrians view but especially how easy it is to get into nice conversations. It started with a young girl I met when I was waiting for the train at Itzelberg and once on the train a woman in maybe her fourties joined our conversation.  In an electronic mart in Heidenheim where I had a look at the TV-sets I met a woman my age or a bit older whith whom I had another nice conversation.

After having some words with one more woman at the ticket machine in the station I got to talk to one in the smoking area on the plattform where I waited for my train back. She was on her way to Aalen too and we chatted until we parted outside the station there. At least this one, I guess, would not have refused if I would have tryed to invite her on a cup of coffee to deepen acquaintance, even in the way I used to do in my younger days hehehehe... :-D

All in all I lost about two hours due to the breakdown of my good old Trooper but this was more than compensated by the nice things I experienced. I do know by now not only how the sophisticated ticket machines of our railroad company Deutsche Bahn AG work but also that it is still quite easy to get into conversations with women...